The Kremlin on Monday vowed to punish those responsible for the death of a group of Russian soldiers in Ukraine, condemned by Moscow as an execution, while kyiv says the soldiers were killed after a false surrender.
“Naturally Russia will look for those who committed this crime. They must be found and punished,” Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
He said that Moscow would turn to international organizations for this purpose “if it is useful”.
Russia on Friday accused Ukraine of executing more than a dozen soldiers who laid down their arms, based on videos posted on social media.
In the first video, a dozen soldiers, believed to be Russians, emerge one by one from a shelter, put their hands in the air and lie face down on the ground under orders from Ukrainian soldiers who hold them at gunpoint.
The video ends abruptly as one last silhouette emerges from the shelter and appears to set it on fire. Another video shot by a drone shows the bloodied bodies of a dozen soldiers at the same location.
On Sunday, Ukrainian human rights official Dmytro Lubinets said the videos showed a “fake surrender” and that Russian soldiers had “committed a war crime by opening fire on Ukrainian armed forces”.
He argued that the Russian soldiers killed in the incident “cannot therefore be considered prisoners of war”.
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